The Meaning Of The Doctor
by johncastle
Summary: Late nights in the TARDIS always seem to bring on the most unusual conversations. This time, we learn that a secret which must never be told... already has been told. Almost.


His face always looked faintly sinister in the lights from the console. Even his previous face had sometimes looked faintly ghoulish above those lights with the too-scant eyebrows, though the boyish grin had sometimes seemed to alleviate the impression. Not always. This face, though, was always somehow ominous, like a dormant volcano.

He flicked his gaze to the sound of a slippered footstep. "Why are you awake?"

"Couldn't sleep." But her brown eyes were half lidded with weariness.

"Right, well, no mystery there. If you can't sleep, it follows you'd be awake." He rested his palms on the console, leaned on them, and gazed placidly at her. "So, digging deeper out of curiosity and to fill a few minutes: Why can't you sleep?"

She sighed. "I'm really not in the..." she shook her head. "It's just you. It's just who you are now. I don't want to fight."

His expression of patient curiosity didn't change. She ran a hand through brown hair and started over. "The Time Lords didn't come through." He raised a bushy brow. "On Trenzalore. The crack in the universe. When you went out for your..." she searched for a fitting word, "...your standoff with the Daleks. What happened out there? I know you changed - a whole new cycle of regenerations - but you told me you couldn't anymore."

He nodded. "Right. The Time Lords sent them through the crack in the universe. It opened in the sky and -" he made a sweeping motion of his hand "Fwoomp! There it was."

"But if they could do that," she folded her arms. "Why didn't they come through?"

He shrugged and turned his eyes back to the scope for a moment. "I honestly don't know. I don't know how they could have sent the regeneration cycle through." The fierce eyebrows knitted. "Ordinarily, it's a treat." he looked up at her. "Not knowing something."

"I tried to help." she said in a small voice. She looked away and her eyes began to well up.

"Oh, don't do that, please not with the leaky eyes..."

"I didn't want you to go." her lower lip trembled. "And I couldn't save you, I couldn't tell them your name, so I told them the only name I know." She looked back, tears threatening to break free and roll down her cheeks. "I told them your name is the Doctor, and..." She sniffled, then blinked. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

He had never looked at her like this before. Not with this face and not with the one before it. He stood gaping, wide eyed, in open-mouthed shock.

"What, what have I done?"

It took him a moment to recover. When he did, he took a step toward her, leaned close, and kissed her forehead softly.

Now she stood gaping up at him. "What was that for?"

"Clara... that _is_ my name. Well, not 100% - the sound was wrong, but everything else you just said — in here" he tapped his temple with his index finger, "that's my name."

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Everything else I just said?" she shook her head, dark tresses moving on her shoulders. "I don't understand."

He sighed. "No, I don't suppose you do. In human terms, you're like a toddler who just sat up and built a fusion reactor out of your Alphabetti Spaghetti." Before she could take umbrage, he leaned on one elbow on the console and held up a finger.

"Listen - you remember that leaf, don't you."

"I'll never forget it."

"If you showed a stranger that leaf, what would they call it?"

She folded her arms over her chest, regarded him patiently. "A leaf. Don't be condescending."

"I'm not. Well, maybe I am - a little - but I'm not trying to be. Just... indulge me. Now a stranger would look at it and all that would be in their head would be 'leaf'. Right? But for _you_ \- for you there's a whole universe of meaning. For you, that simple, basic leaf was a world, it was lives. You saw _deeper_ than its physical form. Now! You remember the painting you saw? Gallifrey Falls No More?"

Her eyes began to widen.

"We don't just do paintings that way, Clara. Remember, it wasn't lines and pigments on canvas, it was a whole world behind there. And we do _everything_ that way, because that's how we think. It's how we see everything. All of time and space, everywhere and everywhen, all at once.

You know, someone once asked me my name, and I actually took a very good try at telling it to her. But I don't need to tell you, because just a moment ago, you told me. And you told them. Well... almost. You see, the sound is also part of it. They gave the whole universe the sound, but you told them the meaning."

He grinned. "They were asking the oldest question in the universe. Which... is also the answer to the oldest question in the universe. But the sound is just the skin. The meaning is the meat."

"Doctor... Who." she said slowly. "That's your name? Who?"

His smile faded. "Well, not when you think it like that." he shook his head, scowling.

So she went back to bed.


End file.
